Plato and His Disciples at the Temple of Cape Sounion
Plato and His Disciples at the Temple of Cape Sounion
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The artwork
On the left, at the top of the headland, the temple is drawn whole, with its roof and pediment, although when this print came out only a few columns still stood on the cape. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.
- Plato among his disciples at Cape Sounion, with the temple of Poseidon still whole.
- In a library or a study, the classical scene brings calm to the wall.
- A gift for anyone who loves philosophy or has been to Cape Sounion.
Because of those columns the headland was called Capo Colonne, Cape of Columns, a name recorded since the seventeenth century. The temple was built between 444 and 440 BC, a dozen years before Plato was born, and for a long time it was thought to belong to Athena, because Pausanias, the ancient world's travel guide, mentions only her at Sounion. It took the excavations of Valerios Staïs, between 1897 and 1915, and the inscriptions they found to give it back to Poseidon, god of the sea. Of its 34 columns, 15 still stand today.
The scene comes from a novel, the Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece. Abbé Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, keeper of the King of France's medals and decipherer of the Phoenician alphabet, worked on it for about thirty years and published it on the eve of the Revolution: a young Scythian travelling through Plato's Greece. Maps and views were by the geographer Jean-Denis Barbié du Bocage. This one, “Plato on the Promontory of Sunium discoursing to his Disciples”, is number 28 in Maps, Plans, Views and Coins, the atlas of the English edition printed in London in 1793, engraved on copper by T. Cook. The copy reproduced here is in the David Rumsey Map Collection.
In a library next to the school classics, or in a teacher's study, it is a gift for anyone who loved philosophy or has stood on Cape Sounion. And up on the headland the temple is still whole, with Plato sitting among his pupils just beside it.
Unique quality material
Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in)
With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass
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